Re: Low-level vs. High-level programming (was My First Computer)

["Kevin Lawton" <kepla@btinternet.com>]

John Moore <butter_pat_head@jcom.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
| "Kevin Lawton" <kepla@btinternet.com> wrote in message
| news:bcr0jg$ep0$5@sparta.btinternet.com...
|| Kelly Hall <hall@priest.com> wrote:
||| "Matthew Russotto" <russotto@grace.speakeasy.net> wrote in message
||| QECdnXzeWrOgUm2jXTWc-w@speakeasy.net">news:QECdnXzeWrOgUm2jXTWc-w@speakeasy.net...
|
| <big snip>
|
|| Basic, which was not created to be used seriously.
|
| Whats your reasoning for that?  Just out of curiosity....

Okay, what I really meant was that BASIC was never intended to be used to
create serious commercial programs. The BASIC language was specifically
designed for teaching the concepts of creating a computer program to people
(often students) who's primary interest was not in computer programming. For
example, students on a science, mathematics or engineering degree course
might be in a position of having to be able to use a computer for
calculation and tabulation - laboratory results, theories, whatever. BASIC
takes many of the concepts of Fortran and presents them in a simpler,
easy-to-use fashion. By making BASIC an interpreted language, the
trial-and-error learning loop is shortened. The result is language which is
very easy to learn and quick to get results in, but lacks the constructs and
structure required for writing good quality commercial applications. Hence
the name:  BASIC = Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. Bear in
mind that at the time, the alternatives mainly avalable were Algol, Fortran
and (newly) Cobol. These three are all compiled languages, and the time
taken to write code on punched cards and then schedule a batch compilation
run to then get the printed results back a day later would only be available
to Computing or Computer Science students.
In no way was I attempting to suggest that the business of education people
via a beginners computer programming language was not serious - education is
a very serious topic. No, I was suggesting that BASIC was not suitable for
creating serious applications in.
Kevin.